Chapter 142: What's Good to Plant

The criteria for choosing the farm site were actually very simple: no coastal saline-alkali land, and likewise no land close to the Central Mountain Range—beneath the topsoil there was nothing but hard rock or gravel. So, the slightly acidic alluvial soil zone in the middle of the plain, which barely qualified as fertile, was the first choice.

Considering the absolutely critical electricity supply on top of that, the location practically suggested itself: the opposite bank from the Kiln District, a bit further upstream.

The new farm's location was very close to the Kiln District; just pulling one power line over would solve the problems of irrigation water-lifting and equipment charging. Of course, irrigation also had a prerequisite: building the waterworks properly.

Liang Le had initially planned the farm for only 200 mu of land, precisely out of concern over the waterworks issue. The farm's land lay a bit upstream from the Kiln District, and a branch stream splitting off from Xingang Creek flowed past its outer edge—perfect for irrigation, with no worry about industrial wastewater from the Kiln District.

However, the large rivers and streams of Tainan had a three-month rampage period every year; the water volume during the summer flood season and the winter trickle season were worlds apart. So Liang Le dared not treat it lightly. Of the 300 Warriors assigned to him, 200 men were currently working on renovating this branch stream—clearing, deep-dredging, building water storage stations along the route, various diversion channels for irrigation...

Around the farm, practically no vegetation could be seen now. Adhering to the Transmigrators' consistent approach, with the natives of Madou Society performing the labor service, a large-scale campaign to expand the "Rotting Land" was already underway on the opposite bank of Xingang Creek.

The remaining 100 hands at the farm had basically cleared out the 200 mu of land: the forest had been cut down and sent to the opposite bank, all tree roots and stones in the ground had been dug out, and the remaining low vegetation was uniformly leveled. After a few days of scorching sun, it was burned to ash in one go, then scattered into the soil as fertilizer.

When Liang Le and the others arrived at the farm by electric tricycle, the first round of flood irrigation after leveling was underway, with water pumps continuously lifting water into the newly dug ditches. For newly reclaimed land, the question of yield was not even considered right now; especially without fertilizer and pesticides, the primary task at hand was weeding.

After the first round of flood irrigation, within a few days, grass seeds catalyzed by the heat during the burning would sprout. By that time, the electric tractors the Great Office had promised Liang Le's group would likely arrive, just in time for plowing, killing the new weeds in the soil.

Then continue flood irrigation, continue plowing... This kind of plain, unadorned, brute-force, yet effective work requiring no pesticides would be repeated once or twice more depending on the situation, until the number of wild grass lured and killed dropped to a tolerable level.

The next step would be sowing.

Taiwan's climate is warm year-round; Taipei is humid-warm, Tainan is dry-warm. Even in the Ice Age, Tainan's coldest winter temperatures never dropped below 15°C; so all common food crops could be sown now.

Of course, for the foreseeable long period, the Transmigrators would not be planting rice.

Rice is a thing that requires high input to achieve high output. With the three treasures of superior seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides all ready, a thousand jin per mu is no dream; if you set up superior-seed field supporting facilities and import some super-hybrid varieties from the druids of later generations, 1,500 jin per mu is also possible.

Of course, hybrid varieties don't taste good, but that's unimportant—the people of Chikan, whose eyebrows bloom with smiles at the sight of greasy fatty meat, won't care about the taste of rice.

Ahem, all of the above is just daydreaming.

The Transmigrators currently possess none of the three treasures—superior seeds, chemical fertilizer, or pesticides—so rice, that tall, rich, and handsome crop, simply can't strut its stuff, just like a rich second-generation stripped of luxury cars, beauties, and daddy. If forced to plant it, Liang Le estimated he'd be burning high incense just to get a yield of three or four hundred jin per mu.

So, honestly planting some soybeans first to test the waters was the true path.

Soybeans are a crop with built-in appeal—they naturally fix nitrogen, so in the eyes of the currently dirt-poor Liang Le, soybeans were the best pathfinder vanguard.

Plant one season of soybeans first—this will definitely require frantic manual weeding n times over—then, after getting a feel for the local soil fertility, climate, and other conditions, the farm would launch potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn, the three great killers specialized for exploding population, combined with various seafood by-products. This was the correct route for the Crossing Regime to solve food self-sufficiency.

As for rice... as long as Hangzhou remained the Canal Transport Hub, the small amount of rice for the Dayuan lords to eat was no issue at all. Wasn't there Taicang White Grain? The Emperor loved it, and there was one squatting right here in Dayuan too, idling about daily, wallowing in extravagance and debauchery—looking at him, he hardly seemed like a ruler of men.

Of course, there was another important reason for not planting rice: malaria.

Here we must emphatically recount the ferocity of malaria.

Malaria originated in Africa; it is a severe infectious disease spread by mosquitoes, commonly known as the shakes, fever sickness, or chills-and-fever sickness. In the 17th century, malaria was a terminal illness.

Smallpox, plague, and malaria were great killers of the same tier, yet malaria was more enduring than the former—in later generations, long after smallpox had been eradicated, malaria still infected over 200 million people, with over 1 million dying directly or indirectly from it each year.

Europeans began colonizing the Americas as early as the 15th century after discovering them, yet Africa, right next door, went unvisited—malaria.

Until 1870, Europeans controlled less than 10% of African land; the vast African interior could not be penetrated—malaria.

After the Aryans who came running out of the sand conquered India, they defined the dark-skinned natives as "untouchables"—malaria.

So, malaria, like smallpox and plague, is a disease that has always profoundly influenced the course of human history.

Over millions of years of struggle, humans were forced to evolve biological weapons like thalassemia and multiple births to resist malaria: in later generations, the rate of twins and multiple births in native African regions was far higher than in other populations.

The few Banda Slaves who could survive a bit longer in Dayuan's terrifying logging and land-clearing environment did so because they were mildly anemic, carriers of the thalassemia gene: originating in Africa, thalassemia spread along the tropical regions of South Asia all the way to the humid-heat areas of Fujian and Guangdong, a distribution map that matches malaria's spread. In later generations, the Rabbit Country had 30 million thalassemia gene carriers.

Yet these passive resistances were ultimately no solution. Aberrant genes with massive side effects like thalassemia could only ensure that about one percent of mildly affected individuals survived to the age of leaving offspring, thus preventing the population's extinction. As for the rampantly infectious malaria, in the 17th century, it was still the chief culprit efficiently killing large numbers of natives in tropical regions. There was a reason Europeans only began pushing into the African interior after discovering cinchona bark.

The Transmigrators knew the power of malaria all too well.

From the very first day they occupied Dayuan, burning vegetation, filling in stagnant water, and building drainage systems had been mandatory preliminary projects during territorial expansion, never once changed.

Prevention is more important than treatment—everyone understood that. Besides, the Transmigrators would not bring out medicine to treat the natives' malaria anyway.

There was a huge ethical issue here: who gets treated and who doesn't?

Medicine was limited, and the population sent to Dayuan in the future would increase geometrically. When the time came, if malaria prevention wasn't done well, with a vast sea of sick lying there, would you treat them or not?

Once you start, there's no stopping—which one deserves to die?

So from the very beginning, the Transmigrators did not make drug treatment the focus. Aside from keeping a small stock for their own use, investing massive resources into developing "Rotting Land" mosquito-free zones was the correct path that would benefit everyone.